The Global Free Unit - University of Brighton...the global free unit studio 2019/20 university of brighton global free unit : arrival maps 1. Arrival Infrastructure: borderscape (3-4

The Global Free Unit

Building with students this summer in Nikola Lenivets. Russia

The Global Free Unit (GFU) is open to both BA and MArch architecture students. The focus this year is on designing a building for the Kent Refugee Action Network in Folkestone as well as having the opportunity to participate in our live project classrooms globally.

The Global Free Unit (GFU) helps students to generate and realise projects within a structured and supportive environment. Students are able to connect their actions to their own history, experience and ethical position rather than the more codified values of education, practice or a single unit. Many students see their time in the GFU as the first stage of their future practice rather than the last stage of their education and many practices have emerged from it. Self- initiated projects have included projects sited in the country where students originate from, ongoing design research projects or live projects with friends, clients or community groups.

In addition to independent projects over the past three years these principles of freedom have gone global as part of a new international network of academic partners and live project “classrooms”. This Global Free Unit Programme includes academic, NGO and community partners in the UK, South Africa, Sweden, Ireland, Russia and Korea.

In 2018/19, the GFU completed projects in Lesvos, Izmir, Russia, Bosnia, Seoul and in Wetherby young offender’s institution in Yorkshire. These live project “classrooms” share a particular emphasis on issues of migration, social justice and cohesion, scarcity and identity, building on recent work within the current refugee crises

This coming year we have a project close to Brighton based in Folkestone where we will be working with the Kent Refugee Action Network (KRAN) to help them define their needs and to design a new building. This project is within the wider context of an international research project that looks at the way displaced people are welcomed into and supported in urban environments. Over the next three year the building you design will be built.

Students in the free Unit are closely supported with us acting as partners in the project. In addition, Students are invited to identify project friends who support them. The unit has developed structures to support projects these include a contract generated by students describing their aims, a gift project and a series of drawing and making workshops. Being in the Free unit is being part of a community of practice where students share and cooperate as equals. Students will work with staff and students from across the GFU network and have access to a global network of project “friends” drawn from leading academics, engineers, politicians, architects and cultural practitioners

The Global Free Unit is currently exhibiting at the Oslo Architecture Triennial and students joining the GFU will exhibit at the Venice Architecture Biennale in May 2020 where Robert Mull is co-curator of the Korean Pavilion. Students joining the unit will also have the opportunity to attend other Global Free Unit classrooms during the year and during next summer.

Professor Robert Mull and Xenia Adjoubei

_________________________________________________________________________________Robert Mull was born in Cambridge in 1960. He was educated at the Bartlett and the Architectural Association. An architect, educator, urbanist and activist, Prof Robert Mull was until 2016 Director of Architecture and Dean of the Cass Faculty of Art, Architecture and Design (affectionately dubbed the Aldgate Bauhaus) in London. He has taught widely in the UK and internationally and held visiting professorships in Vienna and Innsbruck. In 2013, he co-founded a new school of architecture in Moscow. He was a founder member of the architecture collective NATO and has worked on urban projects in areas of social deprivation and political change in many contexts including India, China, Cuba, Korea, the US and Russia. Robert is Head of School and Professor of Architecture and Design at the University of Brighton, visiting professor at Umeå University and Director of Innovation at the urban design consultancy Publica. Recently Robert was curator of the “Turncoats” series and the “Papers” festival at the Barbican and two shows on the Calais Jungle.

Xenia Adjoubei specialises in design and research in areas of culture, architecture and urbanism. She works between London and Moscow and leads an education and research centre in the largest Art Park in Europe, the Nikola-Lenivets Classroom, which is a centre for research and education on the new rural condition and collective craft practices. Xenia runs the Moscow office of Adjoubei Scott-Whitby Studio, an architecture practice with projects in culture, public realm and education. Her curatorial projects cover topics such as The Virtual Museum, Degrowth: Architecture Povera, The New Rural: designing a contemporary village and Art as Labour: physical labour and craft in a post-work future. Xenia helped found the Moscow School of Architecture, MARCH, where she was lead tutor for five years.

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03.10.2019

brief 00

Over the next week, we would like you to do two things.

These tasks will allow you to introduce yourself to us and to the rest of the studio as well as beginning to position yourself in relation to the larger theme of migration and identity.

1. A personal experienceEveryone of us has a personal experience of migration. It might be relocating from one country to another as child, travelling for a gap year, a meeting with refugees or migrants or a road trip. You can define what is migration through your choice. We would like you to make an A1 drawing in any medium recording this experience for presentation to us. It can be based on a map or a pictorial representation of a particular moment or event. It is up to you.

2. A found experienceAt the same time as doing the drawing you should carry out a piece of research into an existing aspect of migration. It might be a particular migration or refugee route, it could be a disputed policy or a particular place. Again, the choice is yours. Please put together five-minute power point based on what you have found and present it to us.

Both tasks will be presented to us on Thursday 10thfrom 1.00pm

the gloabl free unit studio 2019/20 university of brighton

global free unit

10.10.2019

brief 01From the 5th November you will be working on the KRAN project. A real site, real clients, cost constraints and of course difficult ethical, moral and communication issues.

The contract is an opportunity for you to explore and define your overall aims and ways of working in a more expansive way before addressing the reality of the KRAN brief.

The challenge is to make a contract that defines your hopes and ambitions without closing them down. The best contracts give structure to dynamic processes involving various protagonists set within clearly defined boundaries and values. Remember this is your final year project with an emphasis put on active research, exploration and ambition within the context of a fully resolved project. Resist the temptation to substitute lists and timelines for content and ambition.

Also think about how the form/format of the contract can reinforce its aims and content. Think how the document will be used and by whom. Is it for you to return to? Is it a briefing document for your friends? Is it something that becomes a part of the place you are working with? And more…?

And finally, please remember to provide 2 copies with spaces for you, us and two witnesses to sign.

So the contract has a number of purposes.

1. To explore your ethical, moral, architectural and emotional responses to the themes of migration and identity.

2.To begin to explore material, technical and professional responses to the themes of migration and identity.

3.To explore and explain your preferred methods of research and working.

4. And crucially to define your 10 friends, their roles and how you will use/manage them.

the global free unit studio 2019/20 university of brighton

global free unit

To start the conversation about the nature and form of your contract can you bring next Thursday an existing contract by way of a prototype? This need not be related to our project. Think laterally about what constitutes a contract. The contract is a fascinating concept once you engage with it creatively.

13.11.2019

brief 02Following our visit to our partner charity, Kent Refugee Action Network (KRAN), our potential project site and the locations where they hold events in Folkestone, you will now carry out a set of mapping exercises to analyse the greater geographic, geopolitical and urban context of the project.

Do not forget to think about your contract between yourself and the future project during this phase of analysis.

Arrival Maps Sets of maps will be produced on the following subjects:

1. Arrival Infrastructure: borderscape

2. Arrival City: urban spaces


global free unit : arrival maps

Whe you go to visit your sites, we will ask you to do some fieldwork for Brief 03:

Time-lapse photographic studyTime-lapse photographic studies for 3 locations

Recorded conversationsConversations or interviews with pasers by.2-3 convesations per location.



1. Arrival Infrastructure: borderscape (3-4 people)

This will be a map of the county of Kent. It will show the journey of underage refugees, from their point of arrival to the point of distribution in the houses where they stay, dispersed throughout the county.

The Arrival Infrastructure Map shows:1. where, and perhaps how, refugees arrive; underneath lorries, in boats, how else?

2. where they are noticed and picked up by the police; on beaches at ports, check point etc., depending on each mode of arrival. Who sees them first? Do they usually welcome being picked up or do they spend time hiding - where? Any other interesting questions and facts which you can uncover about this moment.

3. Dover where all (majority?) are taken to be screened. What does the screening entail? How large is this facility and what does it look like? How long does the screening process take?

4. Millbank Reception Centre, where children refugees are taken to be registered and where they stay for up to 12 weeks.Are there any alternative locations if Millbank gets too full? Is this a matter of when, not if?

5. where they live: show a rough representation of the distribution of houses where they live across the county. Where are there clusters / densities? What defines this? Is there a correlation between public spending / economic growth and the number of empty properties given over to refugees?Note and represent carefully how close or far away they are from town centres.

6. Show Folkestone, as an important location, as that is where child refugees can get the vital support KRAN offersAlso highlight Ashford: with it’s large concentration of refugees and KRAN pop-upand Canterbury, where refugees and migrants live, spend their time, and where KRAN’s offices are located.

13.11.2019

group 01 : arrival infrastructure

1. Arrival infrastructure: borderscape (3-4 people)

Investigate if there is a way to combine your arrival infrastructure map with a world map showing where the refugees have come from, which will give a cultural and lived experience layer to the mapping of the locations in Kent.

This is an example of how one might draw spatial instances and link them to a global context. Drawing by Suzanne M. Hall, Julia King and Robin Finlay for their Envisioning migration: drawing the infrastructure of Stapleton Road, Bristol study, LSE 2016.



Envisioning Migration NEW DIVERSITIES 1��2�, 2015

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neys of proprietors before they reach Staple-ton Road. Here, we drew lines from city to city and finally to the street, revealing the complex routes undertaken by respective proprietors. Not all proprietors articulated their extended jour-neys to us, but of those who did, a compelling narrative emerged of the kinds of energy and agility required in becoming multiple migrants. Their contorted journeys are captured in red zig-zag lines that cover vast distances: China-Argentina-Britain; Jamaica-Spain-Britain; Sudan-France-Holland-Britain. Following the trace of these lines, we see migration trajectories that include examples of ‘twice migrants’ as those who migrated to one other country before arriv-ing in Bristol, as well as the emergence of ‘thrice migrants’ as those who migrated to two other countries before settling in Bristol. The image encapsulates the complex and arduous journeys and multiple relocations undertaken by propri-etors on Stapleton Road. It refutes the notion of a linear migrant movement from one place to

other, and emphasizes that migrants often, and perhaps increasingly, have to negotiate an array of immigration regulations, mobilities and spati-alities across many national borders.

In this graphic depiction of multiple borders and mobilities, the drawing partially begins to open out the resourcefulness demanded of the contemporary migrant. The image probes at the emergence of an ‘extended migration regime’ comprised of the multiple inter and intra-national borders encountered by the migrant and the repertoires required to undertake extended journeys across space and time. But to tease out the nature of multiple journeys and migrant resourcefulness required us to engage further with individuals to explore the details. Here both image and voice are required to give the narrative of multiple mobilities both depth and detail. Through the narratives of proprietors, we became aware that an ‘extended migration regime’ and the process of settling in across numerous locations required a highly adaptable

Figure 2: Multiple Journeys: A survey of proprietors on Stapleton Road and their multiple migratory routes (2015).

13.11.2019

group 01 : arrival infrastructure

2. Arrival City: urban spaces (3-4 people)

Arrival City is a term coined by Doug Sanders in his eponymous book. Arrival cities perform vital functions in contexts of rapid change such as migration crises. They are often informal settlements such as shantytowns, favelas, urban villages and offer and enable economic and social mobility for new arrivals.In our case we will investigate formal urban contexts in Kent, but we will nevertheless look for flexible, informal, makeshift and loose-fit infrastructure and architecture which can offer a foothold to new arrivals or migrants in urban environments.

Create a series of maps of urban environments where child refugees and other migrants spend their time, where they go to school, where they go to language classes, where they sit outside, where they are invited in (Sunflower House, Quarterhouse etc.) and where they are excluded, where they go to socialise or where they find solitude. 1. A series of maps, a minimum compilation would be Folkestone, Ashford, Canterbury.

2. Speak to KRAN to find out where key spaces are located in all three cities, make a list, locate them on a map.

3. Go to visit as many of the cities as possible and try to visit all of the locations mentioned. Record and represent the activities that go on in these locations and how child refugees and migrants are included in these processes (or excluded).Do not forget to include ethnic minority and migrant communities in your analysis, but note where there may be differences with the child refugees in how and where they spend their time.

4. Subvert your gaze and look for alternative urban environments you may not have considered relevant, such as playgrounds, piers, natural environment etc.



13.11.2019

group 02 : arrival city


5. Map the relationships child refugees and the spaces they occupy have with existing migrant communities, who may be established in these cities. Look at businesses owned by people belonging to ethnic minorities, cafes, shops etc.How can the child refugees identify or be supported by these places or a particular multicultural feel of a high-street or square?

This is an example of how one might represent data about use of buildings and spaces. Drawing by Suzanne M. Hall, Julia King and Robin Finlay for their Envisioning migration: drawing the infrastructure of Stapleton Road, Bristol study, LSE 2016.




6�

years or less. This prompts questions as to what the connections and relationships are between long-established and recently arrived proprietors and respective retail economies, and whether the vitality of the street is reliant on having both groups present in the formation of its livelihoods.

The shops are also classified by seven types of use represented by di erent colours. The array of colours on the drawing demonstrates that Sta-pleton Road is made up of a wide array of retail activities as well as services. What is specifically apparent is the prevalence of food-related retail units, which dominate at half of all units (50 ). The orange lines on the ‘y’ axis indicate the dura-tion of the shop on the street and show that food is a prominent form of retail business on Staple-ton Road. The selling and making of food also registers significantly on the drawing over the period from 2010 to 2015, further suggesting it is a viable entry point into the retail business for many migrants who have recently set up shop on the street. The relatively short duration of this group of food outlets on the street also re ects

their precarious nature, with businesses fre-quently opening for a brief period, only to close within a year. In re ecting on field notes, closure is most common in the sector of fast food out-lets. Nonetheless, a significant number (2 ) of food outlets had been on the street for 20 years or more, indicating that livelihoods on Stapleton Road are simultaneously stable and precarious. We also see the gradual emergence of new activ-ities on the street, highlighted, for example, by the yellow lines that refer to new retail uses con-nected to technology, including mobile phone shops and internet cafes. Retail enterprises on the street both endure and fail.

It remains relevant to take a view of these retail precarities in light of limited access to capital and formal accounting procedures as well as market saturation in low entry barrier areas (Jones et al. 2015). However, the graph also suggests a more rhythmic and varied sequence of street occupa-tion over time, revealing a ‘trial-and-error urban-ism’ from and of the urban margins. The incre-mental nature of this ‘migrant infrastructure’

Figure : Diverse ses: Rhythms of activity on Stapleton Road over time (2015).

13.11.2019



Investigate if there is a way to combine your arrival city maps with a mapping of these urban spaces as representations of the world at large. This can be done by showing the characteristics of which cultures are carried by / represented in each of the urban environments used by child refugees and migrant populations.

This is an example of how one might link an urban mapping to a global context. Drawing by Suzanne M. Hall, Julia King and Robin Finlay for their Envisioning migration: drawing the infrastructure of Stapleton Road, Bristol study, LSE 2016.




6

their variegated practices co-producing both stable and precarious aspects of Stapleton Road.

Drawing 1 – World to Streetur first drawing (figure 1) comprises a world

map juxtaposed with the layout and units that make up Stapleton Road. From the unit of each respective proprietor that we surveyed, a line is drawn to their country of birth, demonstrat-ing the highly global nature of this high street. The image provides a visualization of Massey’s notion of a ‘global sense of place’, which she describes as, ‘a sense of place, an understanding of its character , which can only be constructed by linking that place to places beyond’ (1 1: 2 ). These lines drawn between a global and local sphere collectively provide an emphasis of the

(Barry, 201 ). The migrant groups that occupy this street come from di erent parts of the world, and are emplaced in Bristol and on Stapleton Road, through a plethora of urban sorting mechanisms that rank racialized and ethnicized bodies relative to place.

iii) Locality situates Stapleton Road as a street outside the city centre within a marginal but not explicitly enclaved neighborhood. The street emerges in a locality where o cial scrutiny of entrepreneurial practices is not particularly high, land values remain generally low, and formal regeneration e orts, where they exist, are lacklustre. Stapleton Road is located in an area as markedly poor, as suggested by a high indices of deprivation (see the Indices of Deprivation 2010). However, these varied migrants groups also operationalize the street,

Figure 1: World to Street: A survey of proprietors on Stapleton Road by country of birth (2015).

13.11.2019


We would now like to propose a “gift” for our collaborators and clients, KRAN.

By gift we mean a fully resolved, part, fragment or element of your larger project. The gift must be autonomous and capable of being understood, appreciated and, if appropriate, used without any additional instructions. The gift must be given to your friends in such a way that you receive feedback, which informs the main project and drives it forward.

01. Please design a physical part of the project which sits within the whole. Please ensure that the gift pre-empts and contributes to your technical study.

02. Examples of a gift may include a combination of all of the below:- A model, object or tool.- A fully worked proposal for a part of your project, typically one building or one piece of infrastructure within the whole - A fully designed, structured and detailed event- A fully described material, environmental or structural condition that will be used in the project supported by details and prototypes- A resolved legal, social, managerial or financial mechanism that will be used in the project

The gifts should be ready to be given to KRAN during our next trip to Folkestone the second week of January 2020, when you will give the gift to our Friends and receive and record feedback which will define the next design decisions in the project.

Lantern and entrance porch, Nikola-Lenivets Classroom 2019. Led by Robert Mull, Xenia Adjoubei, Thomas Randall-Page

the global free unit 2019/20 university of brighton

global free unit

Sliced White Pavilion, Nikola-Lenivets Classroom 2017. Led by Robert Mull, Xenia Adjoubei, Thomas Randall-Page

brief 03: the free gift

09.12.2019

Starting from a detail and moving upwards through the scales, you will begin to draw your project.The drawing workshop lasts for two full days and manifests your project through sectional drawings at a variety of scales; from the very detailed to the contextualised. Computers are not allowed.Please take this as a valuable opportunity to decide the majority of the design principals in your project, by following these rules:

01. a series of scalesyou will draw at a carefully considered series of specific scales: 1:5, 1:20, 1:100, 1:500, 1:5000There is a maximum of one hour per drawing. All scales must be drawn in the first day.

02. draw sectionsyou will draw only in section, starting with the 1:5 scale detail of your proposal and then ‘zoom out’ keeping that same element in the ‘frame’ and moving to the next scale 1:20. The initial element should always stay in the frame of every drawing as a reference point, throughout all scales.

03. hand drawingyou are to draw by hand, to scale, without using a ruler for straight edges, please draw using pencil and similar media (charcoal, for example). You should use a scale rule to measure but not to draw.

04. considered media palletalways consider the media (paper, pencil / charcoal, hand collage etc.) and the thickness of the line you are creating. Use your hand drawing as a language and consider how the thickness and character of each line will be read at each scale.

05. enjoy it!this should be a beautiful, contemplative experience which crystalises the key principals of your project in your mind, enjoy this opportunity to draw without distraction!

If you follow these simple rules, by the end of the drawing workshop you will have drawn your project and the rest should be easy.


global free unit

brief 04: drawing workshop

11.03.2020

The drawing workshop allowed you to gain an understanding of the physics and metaphysics of your projects. You drew the relationships between the proposal’s inhabitants and the interior, the relationship between your interventions and the exterior environment, the relationship of the project to the site and to the ‘1:50mile’ context: the sea, the UK borders, the world.

We will now build on this to draw these relationships more precisely in plan. To crystalise your projects by the Formative Portfolio hand-in on the 25th March, in 10 days time!

01. series of 5 sketch plansyou will draw sketch plans of the proposal you drew last week, at scales of: 1:20, 1:100, 1:500Take one hour per drawing. Use pencil, do not use a ruler, consider your media pallet (see drawing workshop brief to refresh you memory on technique).Go through the scale series in order, draw each one of the scales, then go back and do two drawings to a scale of your choice, which can include 1:5 or 1:5000.You should produce 5 plans by Thursday, at the least.

02. keep drawing sectionsYou will need to sketch more sections, as you produce your plans. Please do so. They can be separate drawings or small sections in the corners of your plans. You can also choose to draw two sections instead of the extra 2 plans, if you feel something is left unsaid in plan. If so, they should be on A1, to scale, as per the instructions of the drawing workshop.

This work is submitted on Thursday 19th March before tutorials at 10am.Please work in a quiet environment without distraction. Draw on an A1 sheet paper or trace.


global free unit

brief 05: desiging KRAN

16.03.2020

Documents

The Global Free Unit - University of Brighton...the global free unit studio 2019/20 university of brighton global free unit : arrival maps 1. Arrival Infrastructure: borderscape (3-4